Brockmann aluminum oxides are suitable for column chromatography and adsorptive filtration.
Aluminum oxides are generally used as solid support phases in solid phase extraction (SPE)-based clean-up procedures employed in chromatographic methods.

Aluminum oxide has been used as a chromatographic column support for the purification of sn-2 monopalmitin prior to its determination by high performance liquid chromatography-evaporative light scattering detection (HPLC-ELSD).
It may be used for purification of fish tissue extract followed by liquid−liquid extraction into dichloromethane prior to the analysis for triarylmethane and phenothiazine dyes by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC−MS/MS). It may also be used as a solid support phase for SPE-based analysis of pyrethroid insecticide residues in vegetable oils by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS).